“A Voice from a Separate World”

(“Coyote” by Bessann Swanson)

“The coyote was clearly listening to her own voice: after each call, she looked intently off toward the cliff from which the echo came. Then she would call again, repeating this dialogue for what must have been twenty minutes in all. She turned to stare at us for a second, then went back to her game…We returned to camp feeling that we’d witnessed something extraordinary.”

Frederick Swanson of Salt Lake City describes an encounter with Señor Coyote in the San Juans, in this excerpt from “A Voice from a Separate World,” one of a dozen essays and stories included in Deep Wild: Writing from the Backcountry, coming your way this August. For more info, or to subscribe, click here.